Karen Mc Robbie
Karen enjoys working with a range of both traditional and digital media. She relishes opportunities to experiment and explore materials and techniques, and her illustrations often reveal her rigorous and purposeful approach, balancing innovation with execution.
Storytelling is a key element in Karen’s work; it informs her narrative projects, editorials, set designs, as well as her fine art illustrations and designs for the retail sector. She’s written and developed characters for her own narratives, creating picture books on a variety of themes that have included challenging topics such as depression and bullying, as well as comical children’s stories.
Karen is passionate about figurative work and enjoys portraiture, creating characters and caricatures, utilizing expressions and poses that enhance the narrative. She has a keen interest in illustrating natural history subjects, having been a nature lover since her childhood. Her botanical illustrations and illustrations of moths and butterflies are often portrayed with a dark aesthetic style, adorned with nostalgic embellishment. Detailed, richly textured subjects such as textiles, costumes and jewellery have also been a constant source of inspiration for Karen.
Karen enjoys working as a volunteer, designing, and painting murals for a homeless project in Swansea called, The Shoreline project. She has exhibited work at, Y Lle Celf, the Welsh National Eisteddfod, at The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and the Waterfront Museum in Swansea. She is also involved in the development of a Welsh language art website funded by the Welsh government, authoring content.
Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss a commission, a project or have any questions.
Thank you.
Clients:
TRJ (2018)
Cefneithin Retail Park hoardings
D. Jones
Literature Wales (2020)
Contact: D. Llewelyn
Shoreline Project @The Wallich (2021, 2022)
Hanover Street
Swansea
Contact: K. Tucker
Canolfan Peniarth (2021-2022)
University of Wales trinity St David's
Carmarthen
Contact: Jeni Price
Golwg 360 (2022)
PO Box 4
Llanbedr Pont Steffan
Ceredigion
SA48 7LX
Contact: Owain Shiavone
Exhibitions:
Annual Open Exhibition (2022)
The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery
Y Lle Celf (2021)
Eisteddfod Genedlaethol
Waterfront Museum (2022)
Swansea